You might say sweet potatoes are glorious! And that would be fitting for this relative of the morning glory. They are another way God provides a delicious, nutritious vegetable that can be stored fresh for months. Let’s see how we did with our sweet potato harvest.
How to start sweet potatoes
Most gardeners start sweet potatoes from slips they purchase, a few make their own slips. So… what’s a sweet potato slip. It’s a teeny, tiny sweet potato plant, ready for the garden. We’re not at start-your-own-slips-level gardening quite yet. After all, this was our first year growing sweet potatoes. We purchased two dozen Georgia Jet variety slips.
Caring for the slips
When you purchase live plants online, they try to send them so they arrive at the appropriate time to plant them. And it is recommended you keep the roots of the slips in a damp towel for up to a few days until you’re ready to plant them. One thing garden suppliers can’t control, however, is the weather. June here was much colder and wetter than is typical, not ideal for planting sweet potato slips. In fact, the instructions that came with them made them sound more delicate and fragile than a newborn. Not too cold or wet, no wind… um, ok? We had the roots of our slips in a damp towel for much longer than the recommended time, but it seemed the best chance for some of them to survive. Ultimately, 13 of the slips survived our confused and uncertain indoor care.
Planting sweet potatoes
We built 3 raised beds for the sweet potatoes and filled them with a combination of topsoil and compost. Because the Georgia Jet variety puts down tubers at the plant, we planted about 1 1/2 to 2 feet apart. Varieties that are more spread out require more distance between them, 4-5 feet. The vines grew quickly and more than took over the beds with beautiful flowering vines. Sweet potatoes love full sun and temperatures in the 90s-100s.
Sweet potato harvest
When the weather began to cool and the vines to yellow, we knew it was time for the sweet potato harvest. This is yet another of those root crops with their mysterious growing kept secret underground until harvest time. We were surprised and excited several sweet potatoes in the 2-3 lb range. That’s for one! In total, we ended up with over 80 lbs of sweet potatoes! It may be a good thing we didn’t have more slips to plant. Ahem. Sweet potatoes require curing at 90°F and 90% humidity for several days. Our growing season isn’t long enough around here to be able to do that outside, especially when it’s shortened by a month of cooler than usual weather. We did our best. After curing, we wrapped them individually in plain packing paper and placed them in boxes to store in our not quite a root cellar basement.
What we learned from our sweet potato harvest
- It’s not perfect, but we’ll still be able to enjoy sweet potatoes for months to come.
- A dozen slips are probably enough, so buy fewer. And maybe learn to start our own.
- Our beds need to be deeper, at least 12″.
- Our soil needs to be looser. We might add some sand.
- We will need to devise a better way to cure sweet potatoes in a more controlled environment
- We’ll get that root cellar built one day…
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